The old adage of “build it, and they will come” appears to have paid off massively for Google and their Chrome OS platform. What started as something of a laughing stock, as “nothing more than a browser” on just machines from Acer and Samsung has become a big part of the Google story. The Chrome browser has become the most-used browser all over the world, and Chromebooks running Chrome OS are now outselling even Apple’s MacBook. The recipe for success here is of course the speedy performance, the low cost as well as the ease of use, but the most important part of the puzzle for Google’s Chromebooks has been the software. Chrome OS has now just reached version 54 in the stable channel, and it brings with it all manner of fixes, as well as some new features.
Recent versions of Chrome OS have added support for Android apps to a number of already-existing Chromebooks, and while that doesn’t appear to be the case this time around, although there could be more Chromebooks joining that elusive club very shortly. As for Chrome OS 54, it adds a new image preview feature to the file browser, which allows users to get a look at a selected image inside of a sort of windowbox just by hitting the space bar. Mac OS users will no doubt be familiar with this sort of behavior, but it’s nice to see it make its way into Chrome OS, further improving the already pretty great file browser. There’s also a new Alt+Tab interface when switching between apps and windows, as well as a fix for a number of bugs and issues. Google has also made it easier to ignore the input selector on the shelf at the bottom of the display. Now, users that use different input methods for multiple languages, don’t always have to see the input selector tool in the shelf, as they can turn it off in the settings. The keyboard shortcut to change these input methods will still work as advertised, however.
Chrome OS 54 will be rolling out right now to pretty much any and all Chromebooks that out there, but there might be more of a delay for some users than others.